He said besides insecurity there were other problems that discouraged traders to invest. “Unknown people threaten traders, kidnap their children. Ghazni lacks airport and electricity, how can one invest here,” he asked.

Rahman said he had wound up his businesses in Ghazni and had started making investments in Kabul, Herat and Balkh provinces.

Another trader, Mohammad Alam Ahmadi, told Pajhwok Afghan News: “The situation is not good in Ghazni. I do business in Herat and if the situation in Ghazni improves, I will shift my business here.”

He said the Kabul-Ghazni highway was insecure to the extent that common people, forget about traders, could not commute on it without fear.

Ahmadi urged the authorities concerned to take effective measures for protection and security of traders’ lives and properties in Ghazni.

But a resident of Ghazni City, the provincial capital, said the security situation in the city was not bad and traders should make investments.

“It is true there is no electricity and industrial parks, but the security situation is not that bad, maybe some people make investments.”

Ghazni chamber of commerce head Abdul Matin Qalandari said like several other provinces, no investments had been made in Ghazni.

He said though there were problems in Ghazni, yet he had talked to some traders about investments and they had agreed to do so if the existing problems were resolved.

The trader representative also asked the provincial government to pave the ground for investment in the province.

Ghazni Governor Abdul Karim Matin said maps of industrial parks had been prepared and some work in this completed. The proposed industrial parks would be distributed to traders some time later, he said.

“I have talked to government officials about foreign investment and electricity in Ghazni and the officials had promised cooperation,” the governor said.

He said with completion of the said projects, many traders would come forward to make investment and as a result jobs would be created for the people.

Ghazni police chief Brig. Gen. Aminullah Amarkhel said police had arrested a number of individuals accused of kidnapping sons of traders and creating other problems for them.

He said police were ready to keep security for businessmen if they made investments in the province.

Ghazni is among Afghanistan’s provinces where no factory has so far been established or any big investment carried out.